Moaz al-Kasasbeh

Moaz al-Kasasbeh (1988-28 January 2015) was a Lieutenant of the Royal Jordanian Air Force. He was captured by the Islamic State during Operation Inherent Resolve and was executed by being burnt alive after Jordan failed to exchange him for Sajida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi.

Biography
Moaz al-Kasasbeh was born in 1988 in Karak, Jordan, the eighth child of a prominent family - his uncle was a Major-General of the Jordanian Army. Kasasbeh graduated from the King Hussein Air College in 2009 and joined the Royal Jordanian Air Force, and in 2012 he joined the No. 1 Squadron at the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base after qualifying as an operational pilot. al-Kasasbeh took part in the Operation Inherent Resolve airstrikes against the Islamic State militants alongside the United States, Qatar, Bahrain, and other Middle Eastern countries, flying missions with the Allies. On 24 December 2014, his F-16 was shot down by a heat-seeking missile from the IS stronghold of Raqqa in Syria, and he was forced to eject into the Euphrates River as his plane deviated from its flight path. He was captured by IS militants on the ground and paraded around before he was held in captivity alongside other IS prisoners like Haruna Yukawa and Kenji Goto.

Many attempts were made to save al-Kasasbeh's life, with his family pleading to IS to release a fellow devout Sunni Muslim. On 27 January 2015, Kenji Goto appeared in a video stating that IS would accept Jordan's offer to release failed suicide bomber Sajida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi in exchange for Kasasbeh, but Jordan had only one day to release him. On 3 February 2015, al-Kasasbeh was shown in a video in a cage being burnt alive, in one of the Islamic State's most brutal murders.